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The Journal of Physical Chemistry B

Three-Pulse Photon Echo of Finite Numbers of Molecules: Single-Molecule Traces

Hui Dong, Graham R. Fleming

Published May 7, 2013• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In conventional bulk nonlinear spectroscopy, the contribution from molecules with different environmental conditions sometimes conceals the properties of interest and prevents the assessment of the heterogeneity of complex systems. This is especially true when exploring mechanisms of coherence loss in multicomponent systems [Ishizaki and Fleming, J. Phys. Chem. B 2011, 115, 6227]. To avoid this drawback of ensemble measurements and evaluate single-molecule behavior, a quantum theory is proposed to study the three-pulse photon echo signal of a two-level system in a bath and reveal the fluctuations inherent to single molecules. The current method takes advantage of the coherent state representation to understand the photon echo experiment in a wave function formalism rather than the reduced density matrix. Information regarding the environmental degrees of freedom (DoF) is explicitly encoded in the initial state of the system plus bath. The thermal fluctuations of the initial states induce variation of the photon echo signal, which is clearly different from the ensemble average echo signal. We use our formalism to demonstrate the recovery of the conventional ensemble response signal from the single-molecule signal.

DOI
10.1021/jp402768c

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In conventional bulk nonlinear spectroscopy, the contribution from molecules with different environmental conditions sometimes conceals the properties of interest and prevents the assessment of the heterogeneity of complex systems. This is especially true when exploring mechanisms of coherence loss in multicomponent systems [Ishizaki and Fleming, J. Phys. Chem. B 2011, 115, 6227]. To avoid this drawback of ensemble measurements and evaluate single-molecule behavior, a quantum theory is proposed to study the three-pulse photon echo signal of a two-level system in a bath and reveal the fluctuations inherent to single molecules. The current method takes advantage of the coherent state representation to understand the photon echo experiment in a wave function formalism rather than the reduced density matrix. Information regarding the environmental degrees of freedom (DoF) is explicitly encoded in the initial state of the system plus bath. The thermal fluctuations of the initial states induce variation of the photon echo signal, which is clearly different from the ensemble average echo signal. We use our formalism to demonstrate the recovery of the conventional ensemble response signal from the single-molecule signal.
The analysis of nonlinear spectroscopy, widely used to study the dynamics and structures of condensed-phase matter, typically employs a perturbative approach noticing the weak interaction between the laser and the matter of interest. However, such perturbative approach is no longer applicable once the interaction between the laser and the matter is strong. We adapt the method of quantum dynamical evolution into the calculation of signal and present the response formalism of the nonlinear spectroscopy in a nonperturbative approach. In this new approach, we demonstrate that in addition to the third-order term in the perturbative method, the higher-order terms have essential contributions to the nonlinear signal of the two-pulse and three-pulse photon echo (2PPE and 3PPE). The detailed calculations are demonstrated with the example of a three-level V-type system, which is widely used in the studies of quantum optics. We consider the effect of the environment via a pure dephasing mechanism with both the localized modes of each molecule and the shared modes between molecules.
The analysis of nonlinear spectroscopy, widely used to study the dynamics and structures of condensed-phase matter, typically employs a perturbative approach noticing the weak interaction between the laser and the matter of interest. However, such a perturbative approach is no longer applicable once the interaction between the laser and the matter is strong. We adapt the method of quantum dynamical evolution into the calculation of signal and present the response formalism of the nonlinear spectroscopy in a nonperturbative approach. In this approach, we demonstrate that, in addition to the third-order term in the perturbative method, the higher-order terms have essential contributions to the nonlinear signal of the two-pulse and three-pulse photon echo (2PPE and 3PPE). The detailed calculations are demonstrated with the example of a three-level V-type system, which is widely used in the studies of quantum optics. We consider the effect of the environment via a pure dephasing mechanism with both the localized modes of each molecule and the shared modes between molecules.
The nonperturbative approach to the calculation of nonlinear optical spectra of Seidner et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 103, 3998 (1995)] is extended to describe four-wave mixing experiments. The system-field interaction is treated nonperturbatively in the semiclassical dipole approximation, enabling a calculation of third order nonlinear spectroscopic signals directly from molecular dynamics and an efficient modeling of multilevel systems exhibiting relaxation and transfer phenomena. The method, coupled with the treatment of dynamics within the Bloch model, is illustrated by calculations of the two-dimensional three-pulse photon echo spectra of a simple model system-a two-electronic-level molecule. The nonperturbative calculations reproduce well-known results obtained by perturbative methods. Technical limitations of the nonperturbative approach in dealing with a dynamic inhomogeneity are discussed, and possible solutions are suggested. An application of the approach to an excitonically coupled dimer system with emphasis on the manifestation of complex exciton dynamics in two-dimensional optical spectra is presented in paper II Pisliakov et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 124, 234505 (2006), following paper].
In the first part of the dissertation, we develop a theoretical approach to analyze nonlinear spectroscopy experiments based on the formalism of quantum state (QST) and process tomography (QPT). In it, a quantum system is regarded as a black box which can be systematically tested in its performance, very much like an electric circuit is tested by sending a series of inputs and measuring the corresponding outputs, but in the quantum sense. We show how to collect a series of pump-probe or photon-echo experiments, and by varying polarizations and frequency components of the perturbations, reconstruct the quantum state (density matrix) of the probed system for a set of different initial conditions, hence simultaneously achieving QST and QPT. Furthermore, we establish the conditions under which a set of two-dimensional optical spectra also yield the desired results. Simulations of noisy experiments with inhomogeneous broadening show the feasibility of the protocol. A spin-off of this work is our suggestion of a witness that distinguishes between spectroscopic time-oscillations corresponding to vibronic only coherences against their electronic counterparts. We conclude by noting that the QST/QPT approach to nonlinear spectroscopy sheds light on the amount of quantum information contained in the output of an experiment, and hence, is a convenient theoretical and experimental paradigm even when the goal is not to perform a full QPT. In the second part of the thesis, we discuss a methodology to study the electronic dynamics of complex molecular systems, such as photosynthetic units, in the framework of time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT). By treating the electronic degrees of freedom as the system and the nuclear ones as the bath, we develop an open quantum systems (OQS) approach to TD-DFT. We formally extend the theoretical backbone of TD-DFT to OQS, and suggest a Markovian bath functional which can be readily included in electronic structure codes.
The role of weakly chirped pulses (time bandwidth product, DeltanuDeltatau<0.61) on three-pulse photon echo signals has been systematically studied. Pulses with varying chirp were characterized with frequency resolved optical gating (FROG) and used to measure spectrally resolved three-pulse photon echoes of a dye in solution. The weakly chirped pulses give rise to markedly different echo signals for population times below approximately 100 fs. The chirped pulses can decrease or enhance spectral signatures of an excited state absorption transition in the echo signal. Furthermore, the observed dephasing dynamics depend on the phase of the electric fields. Simulations based on a three-level model and the electric fields retrieved from the FROG traces give a good agreement for photon echo experiments with both transform limited and chirped pulses. The simulations also allow for a numerical investigation of effects of chirp in two-dimensional spectroscopy. For a two-level system, the chirped pulses result in nonelliptical two-dimensional spectra that can erroneously be interpreted as spectral heterogeneity with frequency dependent dephasing dynamics. Furthermore, chirped pulses can give rise to "false" cross peaks when strong vibrational modes are involved in the system-bath interaction.
A general conceptual problem of time-dependent single molecule spectra is discussed theoretically in the framework of recently developed intensity-time-frequency correlation spectroscopy. It is shown that the new method is closely related to a ``gedanken'' three-pulse photon echo experiment done on an ensemble of identical molecules interacting with statistically identical microscopic environments. The correlation function is an integral transform (under certain conditions a Fourier transform) of the echo amplitude as a function of the delay between the first and the second pulses.